'What a load of s***e, eh?' says Dick Lee in a thick cockney accent. The octogenarian war veteran is building up a head of steam about the seven-Oscar-winning movie The Bridge on the River Kwai. It is 50 years since it was shown to worldwide acclaim but he is not alone among ex-prisoners of war who still express disenchantment.
A better insight into how wide of the mark the script was comes from the granddaughter of Colonel Philip Toosey, the commanding officer played as Colonel Nicholson by Alec Guinness. 'There was nothing in the film that led him to believe the character of Nicholson could have anything to do with him,' says Julie Summers, who is also author of The Colonel of Tamarkan. 'He described it as 'a good fun piece of fiction'. The film made millions of people think they were seeing something realistic when they were not.'
Unsuccessful entreaties were made to the film's flamboyant producer, Sam Spiegel, to add a subtitle that branded the movie 'fiction'.
So where did the movie go wrong? Bombshell: there never was a River Kwai. Blame Pierre Boulle. In 1952, the French author published the novel Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai. A former prisoner of war (POW) himself, he'd heard survivors talking of building two bridges on Khwae Mae Klong, and many railway camps stood along the adjoining Khwae Noi. The khwae part obviously stuck in his head. But khwae is simply the Thai word for river.
'So he inadvertently named it 'River River',' says Summers with a laugh.
In 1942, the Japanese desperately needed a railway link between Bangkok and Rangoon (now known as Yangon) to fuel their push into India. Use was made of 60,000 Allied POWs from Singapore and Java - a windfall labour force. A further 200,000 native labourers were forced to work. The route forged through rugged terrain adjacent to the Burma (Myanmar) border; 688 bridges spanning nearly 13km completed the 415km line, which became known as the Death Railway.
